As far as I'm concerned, dangerous products from other countries is a form of warfare. Products for American use should be made by Americans in American factories on American soil.

When will the U.S.A. stop sending all our jobs and manufacturing resources to other countries? I find it hard to believe with all our technology we can't be competitive. Sure we may have to pay a little more for it but our monetary resources will stay within our country which we can use to better our own needs. China should be buying as much from us as we buy from them. Wake up America. China doesn't care about your future.

CNBC: Poisoned Goods Worth the Lower Cost

by Sandy Sand

http://www.opednews.com

Like a modern-day Lucrezia Borgia or Lizzie Borden doing her Marie Antoinette imitation, Erin Burnett of CNBC said let them play with toxic toys.

"[I]f China were to revalue its currency or China is to start making, say, toys that don't have lead in them or food that isn't poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up, and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up, too. So I would say China is our greatest friend right now." Erin Burnett, hostess of CNBC's Squawk on the Streets" and "Street Signs" on Hardball.

After hearing about this from Stacy Taylor who was guest hosting for Randi Rhodes, I had to read this myself and I still don't believe it.

This woman must be freakin' out of her freakin' mind, and Matthews was so busy flippin' over her and flirting that he didn't pause for an instant to do a Jon Stewart "Waaaaaa?" double take.

(See portions of transcript below. Friday, August 10th.)

I doubt he heard one word of her insane statement, and I wonder if her bosses at CNBC heard it either. If I were them she'd be looking for a new job...in a Chinese slave labor factory.

I'm not even going to try to be polite here and use p.c. words. This woman is an evil thinker, if not an evil person. An eely, heartless corporate mouthpiece whose hatred for U.S. consumers and their children is only equalled by her blind love for heartless, profiteering, cold, impersonal, don't give a crap about anything than the bottom line corporate honchos.

I know nothing about this woman, Erin Burnett, but from that one ill-conceived idea she must be a closet masochist, who pulled the wings off butterflies when she was a kid, roots for the matador at bull fights, and is the most hardhearted of Hannahs who doesn't mind seeing kids poisoned for the sake of the almighty dollar. Perhaps in a former life she was an evil matron in an English orphanage in the time of little Ollie Twist.

Does she have tots at home? I have no idea, but if she does I'd like to Fed-Ex her a box of lead-painted toys filled with B-B magnets that are clearly marked Made in China, and see how quickly she tosses them in the trash where they belong.

Even though she has the colossal nerve to tell us we're foolishly China-shy, odds are if she has children, she's placed a restraining order on all Chinese-made toys, and they can't get within a thousand yards of her kids.

No, those toys are for the kids of Wal-Mart shoppers, who are most likely moms and dads who've lost their jobs that were outsourced to China. Chances are that some of those moms and dads who are standing in line at a Wal-Mart in Los Angeles used to work on the line at Mattel in El Segundo, California.

According to Burnett, the Chinese are our best friends and we should allow them to do anything they want. Truth be known, they are not our best friends; China is our Simon Legree landlord and can foreclose on us any time it wants.

The Chinese literally hold the keys to our economic kingdom. We've sold them so much of our debt that they can call the shots without fear of retaliation.

If we are to take Burnett seriously, it's okay for the Chinese to market poisoned toothpaste; break contracts with Mattel and sell our children toys decorated with leaded paint, toys stuffed with tiny magnets and dolls that have luminescent eyes because they're filled with kerosene; and contaminate our pet food.

According to Burnett, who loves corporate money far more than her fellow Americans, says we should take whatever the Chinese serve up as consumer products, and we should always be hungry for more...more...more.

We know what the main courses have been; now we're left wondering what remains in their poison pantry that we haven't been served yet.

August 20, 2007

CNBC's Burnett Atones for Toxic Toy Remarks, Almost

by Sandy Sand

http://www.opednews.com

Looking uncomfortable in her guest chair...it was more like doing a never-ending series of tiny up and down bounces...CNBC's Erin Burnett made her regular Friday night appearance on Hardball.

The bobbing and cockeyed smile, I'm guessing, was knowing that in the second half of the interview Chris Mathews was going to launch into the criticism she took after her appearance on his show last Friday night.

I wrote about that appearance (CNBC: Poisoned Goods Worth the Lower Cost, Op-ed 8/15), making wild speculations as to what kind of person Burnett is that she could in essence say: What do they want? Cheap and safe? If you want cheap toys for you children don't expect them to safe; that will drive up the price.

It was as if she were saying the price is uber alles, and cheap is more important than your kid chowing down on leaded paint or breaking his three-year-old teeth by chomping on B-B magnets.

BTW, swallow enough B-B magnets and they join forces causing intestinal blockage. Omigawd that must hurt! And, it's dangerous. Just thinking about it gives me intestinal utsies.

Burnett said on the August 10th Hardball, "You know, if China were to revalue its currency or China is to start making, say, toys that don't have lead in them or food that isn't poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up, and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up, too. So I would say China is our greatest friend right now."

Many people took umbrage at that. So many in fact, that the second half of the interview began with Matthews (no flirting like last week) saying that they should comment on the negative comments commenters had made about her comments on the previous week's show.

Here's where the nervous bouncing began to slow down, and the peculiar smile became more genuine. For all I know, she's always bouncingly nervous on air. I'd never seen her before tonight, and had only read what she said on the 8/10 Hardball.

One of the worst parts, I liked Burnett in spite of the callous, uncaring way she came off with her previous statements.

She's attractive, enthusiastic about her business reporting, and perky -- but not too perky. Like Lou Grant of the "Mary Tyler Moore Show", I hate perky. She looks like the kind of woman it might be fun to have lunch with or go shopping.

She tried, she really tried to tame down what she said the previous week, but it still came out pretty much the same.

It went something like: What do you expect? Cheap is cheap, and if you want the Chinese to use the same standards in their manufacturing as we do in ours, then you're going to have to pay for it.

No kidding. Golly gee. Too much to expect that the Chinese can't figure out a way to make safe toys that would only up the ante a penny or two per toy. What crap! They don't pay decent wages; couldn't they pop for unleaded paint?

I'm wondering why anybody, any where on Earth is still making paint with lead in it. I'm pretty sure unleaded paint formulas aren't state secrets, and I can't imagine that they are that more expensive to produce than the leaded variety.

Burnett gave it the old college try. She gets a point and a half for that.

She was trying to tell a truth; a very ugly truth. Unfortunately, she didn't choose her words carefully the first time around. Even the second time around the words were pretty much the same with the same meaning, buy crap...get crap. Only this time she left out the "poisoned" part.

Even though she and Matthews ran down the litany of toxic Chinese products that have been recalled during the last month or two, the most recent being baby bibs pulled off the shelves by Toy R Us, because of their lead content.

Again with the lead? What's with the lead? Don't we send tons of plastic to China to be recycled? Why don't they use that in their products? As far as I know it's lead-free.

At one point Burnett said "China is our greatest friend."

No they're not! They hate us. They hate our children. They hate our pets. They make poisoned products for both, and they don't give a damn.

They should give a damn. Maybe two or three damns. If they poison all of us, who will be left to buy their cheap crap?

But, I digress. So, after talking about all the recalled tainted products, Burnett -- there goes the smile again -- said, of course, we don't want our children to be poisoned by or play with dangerous toys.

No kidding. Of course, we don't. But "We" get angry. We question.
We...I would like to know why she showed no anger. She's on Hardball to give her opinion. Anger's an opinion...sort of.

No anger with the Chinese.

No anger with our government for allowing the Chinese to own a high percentage of our debt.

No anger at our government for allowing, in the past, and continuing to allow China to send us their cheap toxic goods and shoddy, and continue their dangerous manufacturing practices.

No anger that maybe the reason our government doesn't clamp down on the Chinese is because they've stupidly allow them to own us and are afraid of fiscal retribution.

No anger that our official are sitting around shiny conference tables in D.C., scratching their heads with one hand, while the fingers on their other hand are up their butts, trying to figure out what to do.

No anger at Matell for not announcing immediately that besides recalling the toxic toys they were going to recall the slave labor, and bring the jobs home where they belong.

No anger anywhere.

Well, maybe I have enough anger for both of us.

Mattel, Inc. Deserves This Class Action Suit

August 23, 2007

by Sandy Sand

http://www.opednews.com

Government officials are dithering on this issue, and as yet haven't come up with a plan to stop the import of dangerous toys, nor have manufacturers announced 'this is enough,' and will no longer deal with Chinese manufactures and bring the jobs home.

After having devastated the American job market and our manufacturing base in favor of outsourcing for cheap labor and inferior products, they've been bitten in the ass by the Chinese, costing them their reputations and a bunch of money.

Even after all the complaints, they still don't seem to care about their reputations, which are in ill repute, so let's hope that money's voice screams loudly and clearly.

Trying to killing them financially, attorney Jeffrey Killino (Woloshin and Killino), filed a class-action suit against Mattel in Los Angeles Superior Court on August 21.

In the suit, Killino is demanding that Mattel pay for the testing of thousands of children who may have been exposed to lead.

If Killino wins in court and with the ultra high cost of medical testing and treatment, it should cost Mattel enough to teach them a lesson they won't soon forget, if not drive them out of business.

They built their business from a tiny plant in Venice, California, and grew into a mega billion dollars business on the good will and trust of the American people. They deserve no less than to pay a heavy price for their betrayal of American children and American workers.

What do you expect when everything is outsource to 3rd world countries. Then to top it all of we exploit them. This is why American should take care of it's production here in the U.S.A. Everything that use to be made here is now being made in another country. There are not many American products done here.

Is Mattel owned by China?

Wake up America! It's time we took a stand and demanded that companies like Mattel bring back their production to the USA and stop outsourcing to third world countries who could care less about the saftey of the products being sold here. We have laws and regulations here for a good reason--to protect the consumer buying the products. China certainly doesn't have the same laws and regulations in place and in order to make more money could care less if our children and pets die from poisoned products. What's a few extra dollars to prevent this type of problem in the future by bringing back the production of these products to the USA? It's gotten to the point that I spend hours in the store reading labels before buying something to ensure that it is NOT made in China and have the peace of mind that I didn't put my children in danger or poison the family dog. Enough is enough already!! American made products for American consumers!! Need I say more?

It's easy to clamor for "MADE IN THE USA" for everything, but apparently no one here remembers WHY things aren't made here anymore: It's cheaper overseas, and we aren't willing to pay the price to buy things made here. Why do you think Wal-Mart, which is basically a big outlet of Chinese goods, is the world's biggest retailer? It's because of prices. They sell crap people can actually afford. It's not like everyone can afford to buy their entire wardrobe at Patagonia, for crying out loud.

And where are these big plastic molding factories going to be located in the US? Certainly nowhere here in California or really, anywhere where NIMBYism is strong. What forests are you willing to cut down for your wood toys? And most importantly, are you seriously willing to pay someone a real wage to make your toys, or are you going to basically "outsource" within the USA by hiring undocumented workers? We the customers essentially answered that last question, and our answer is, "hell no, we're not paying more, give us our stuff for as cheap as possible". Welcome to the free market folks, you know the one where the government isn't supposed to intervene and play the part of Big Brother? If you don't like it, try supporting our local manufacturers, and quit being a bunch of whiny, stingy morons and shell out the real money it costs to get a real quality item. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. You people live in some fantasy world where you can get anything for nothing.

And BTW, the lady who DROVE to Mattel HQ and DEMANDED they inspect her toys for her? Ridiculous. I bet she even COMPLAINED about how much the toys cost in the first place. The Devil Wears Prada and Buys Mattel toys for the kids! Hypocrisy in action.

To the last commenter--Yes it is free market working as it should--but where do we draw the line? when products become dangerous and even fatal then we should demand action. I don't shop at high end departments, drive an expensive luxury car, or max out my credit cards at Christmas to buy toys for my kids. I would much rather spend a few extra dollars for quality and not quanity. And if those few extra bucks help pay the wages of a worker and create more jobs here in the USA--then I'm willing to give up a few luxuries to do so. And by bringing jobs back here to the states--that in turn creates salaries that are going to be spent in our cities and towns--thus boosting the economy! Are you willing to do the same?

First our pets, now our children?!? It's time to STOP doing business with China! It reminds me of the poisened Pet Food recall; a little more info divulged everyday, more products identified every day, yet they knew the truth for months... NOW the new Toys R Us recall is lead-based children's art kits. They say, "Consumers are asked to take the products away from children and return them to the nearest "Toys "R" Us store for store credit, the CPSC said." WHAT?!? Oh *bleep* no!!! I'm demanding a full refund, not lousy "store credit". They sold an unsafe product, it's MY choice where I choose to spend my money, NOT theirs! I don't EVER intend to purchase another toy from Toys R Us for my child again.

America asked for cheap products from a country that cares little about their own enviornment, health standards or safety. Why would you think they'd care about us? Only people I point the finger at is American companies doing business with China and fail to protect us when they import products that we use to make here in America.

Americans asked for and now receive cheap products from a country that cares little about their own environment, health standards or safety. Why would you think China would care about ours? China only cares about one precious asset. They want your money. The U.S. budget deficit is financed by foreigners and much of it by the Chinese. I point the finger at American companies doing business with China and fail to protect us when they import products that we use to make here in America. I also point the finger at our own government, republicans and democrats alike, for selling American business to the lowest bidder.

Its all a crock!! Greedy American companies, 'selling out' our workforce, produces products in a foriegn country, and that foriegn country then produces a substandard product that could harm children.
Who is at fault? The Greedy company from the good old USA....
A Chinese contracted company can get away with this, but could not do so if the product was manufactured in the United States....

While I do not have children, I do have pets who were affected by the recent pet food recall. One of my cats died from a pet food that never owned up to the fact that its food was contaminated...even though other pets also died from it. Some pet food companies did not send out notices on their contaminated pet food until late Friday evenings, when many people did not notice the warning. This intensified the chances that many animals would eat the contaminated food and either die or become very sick, because of this practice.

This has dramatically changed the way that I purchase not only pet food, but my own food. I look for manufacturers who do not outsource to China or purchase ingredients from them. I pay a little more, but it's worth it for the peace of mind it brings.

My little girl's health is too important to me to trust Mattel again. As I see it they failed to stop the products from getting to my store's shelves. This is a breach of trust that I will not forget or forgive. I will never trust them again.

To paraphase the Bible, with a little twist of my own: What you sow (outsource), so you shall reap (weep)!

First the pets, then the kids, next the adults. Wake and smell the lead and melamine!